


The Fall of a King

by crookedsaint



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Benzaiten Steel (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, don't get your hopes up for arson, peter nureyev feel an emotion challenge 2k19, very cheap matches, very expensive chandeliers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-10 14:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17427644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedsaint/pseuds/crookedsaint
Summary: "Juno wasn’t sure why he’d let Rita drag him to the ballet. The last time he’d let Rita plan an outing, the evening had ended with fireworks, sure. Unfortunately, they’d been aimed at his face from a passing float infested with mafia and, judging by the shoddy construction, termites."Juno goes to the ballet. Juno goes to a basement. Peter comes home.





	1. Chapter 1

Juno wasn’t sure why he’d let Rita drag him to the ballet. The last time he’d let Rita plan an outing, the evening had ended with fireworks, sure. Unfortunately, they’d been aimed at his face from a passing float infested with mafia and, judging by the shoddy construction, termites. He couldn’t rule out termites this time, either. Most of his memories of the bare-bones theatre program at Old Town High were of various things falling on his head as he pretended not to be watching Ben.

Rita may have made a mistake in inviting him to a dance show. Juno didn’t know much about ballet beyond what his brother taught him, and that was mostly a selection of curses to lay upon anyone who ever tried to get Juno to dance pointe. Something about toe-pads and fuck that motherfucker who ever invented a fucking wood shoe. Besides, regardless of shoe choice, Juno wasn’t even that fond of dance. Even when Ben was… well, you know how it is with siblings. If Ben liked something, Juno couldn’t. It was common decency.

Rita, meanwhile, obeyed no such law. She was babbling on and on about the depth and _imagery_ of the ballet (something about plums and a peacock) as Juno trudged into the faux-opulence of the Hyperion Imperial Theater’s lobby. Everything was gilt or foil or something incredibly tacky that couldn’t quite be placed as either. The only truly impressive piece in the building was the chandelier, which the management assured you, whether asked or not, was _not_ stolen from the Venusian emissary to Mars ninety-five years ago, no matter what the media says.

“—and you should see the _snow,_ Mista Steel, how it glitters all over somehow even though I don’t understand how it’s made if it’s not a real crystal structure cause that’d be _so_ expensive but they do it somehow— _ooh_ what if it’s like that case we pulled with the Azure sisters? Something with _water ac_ —?”

“Rita.” Juno caught her by the shoulder. She was inches away from a heavyset man wearing a lint-covered suit and a remarkably obvious wire. “Mouth closed. Don’t wander too far.” Whether he meant her lips or her legs, even he wasn’t sure of.

They made their way up the stairs to the box seating. Rita had somehow managed to switch their tickets from back-row balcony to “would you like a beverage, ma’am?” in the space of the few hours Juno had had to get dressed this morning. This meant he stood out like a sore thumb, of course. Despite that, he found himself relishing a bit in being waited on by an actual waiter with a name on their lapel that was probably the same as on their birth certificate.

“Whiskey.” Juno noted the sweat beading on the back of his neck. “On the rocks.”

“Right away, ma’am.”

Juno turned in his plush velvet seat to face Rita, who was already sinking deep, deep into her own. “Aren’t theaters usually cold? So the actors don’t boil?” That’s right. He also recalled Ben’s numerous complaints about how sweltering it was backstage. Funny that all he can bear remembering these days is the negative.

As Rita rattled on about selective heating, Juno opened his program. He had a faint hope that he might recognize some of the dancers. His court-mandated therapist back in those days had said he should “connect” with “the grief of your peers.” Juno had mostly carried that out by getting blackout drunk with Mick, but hey. He could always use more drinking buddies.

Juno froze.  
  
“Mista Steel?”

It couldn’t be.

“Mista Steel, are you all right?”  
  
By all rights, it shouldn’t be.

“Here’s your whiskey, ma’am. The show begins in just a few seconds, so please—”

“There’s no way,” Juno breathed.

“Sorry?”

“Mista Steel!”

And just like that, the curtain opened. Thankfully, Rita was too distracted by the glitz to remember why she was worried about him. Juno watched, gaze vacant, as a doll was presented, came alive, fought a rabbit…

Rita was right. The snow was beautiful.

The applause was deafening as the act curtain went down. Nearly an hour had passed with Juno searching each actor’s face, disbelieving but hopeful, completely lost as to the real events of the ballet. Another fifteen minutes went by with another couple glasses of whiskey and another Rita exposition, this one to do with some kind of huge skirt and the load-bearing capabilities thereof. There wasn’t even a dream of Juno paying attention now. His mind was entirely focused on two words.

_Korol Stakani._ King of glass, in an old Terran language—that is, old by Mars standards. It was newer by far than the last time Juno had heard the name. Newer than _Rex_.

Just as abruptly as it had fallen, the act curtain rose. A tinkling melody almost distracted Juno as a plump woman in a decadent shade of royal purple twirled across the stage. Silver glitter twinkled across her collarbone and shoulders as her arms propelled her one, two, three… God, he’d lost count. This was always what Ben liked most about dance. The rush, he called it. The burn of your legs when you bowed after all those dizzying turns.

Juno hoped the woman in purple felt like that now.

Goddamnit, he didn’t need one foot in each emotional rollercoaster right now. He needed focus. He needed to be less drunk. He needed to be less in tune with the actual dancers and more so to the ballet of deeply un-subtle agents starting to mill through the orchestra seating.

There was a whirl of motion, and it was obvious on the dancers’ faces that plans had changed. A cage was spun to the center of the stage, and—

_Couldn’t, shouldn’t, there’s no way_ —  
  
“Nureyev?”

The peacock was covered head-to-toe in feathers, sequins, glitter. It was all technicolor distraction from its marble cheeks, its coal-black brow, its perfectly combed hair… and that scent. He felt it all around him, all at once, closing in on him as the dancer’s feathered tail sprayed across the stage, sending with it the comfort of something lost. The comfort of hoping, vainly, that it might be regained.

The agents moved at once, a writhing mass of burly bodies grasping in the dust left behind the dancer’s swift, practiced movements. Gasps echoed throughout the audience as the peacock leapt onto the cage’s apex. He broke off a bar and tossed it, with all the form of an athlete, clean through one of the agents.

“Mista _Steel are we going to do something about this!?”_

Juno gritted his teeth as blood sprayed across the front row. “Get me back to the lobby.”

As he and Rita rushed down the rows and rows of stairs, Juno could hear the screams starting. Nur—Stakani must be putting on quite the show. “Rita,” he huffed as he hurried, “Where’s the security in this place?” Before she could recite building plans at him, he corrected himself. “Go there. Disable all the cameras.” _If they’re not disabled already._ “Audio too.”

She nodded and peeled off.

Juno regretted this, somewhere in his heart. He knew he wouldn’t deal with this professionally, and, selfishly, he had opted to have as few witnesses to whatever happened as he could. By all rights, Rita should be with him. But, by all rights, no one should have been run through with a set piece. Life isn’t fair sometimes.

“Juno?”

He wasn’t sure what he was dazzled more by,  the chandelier or the man hanging by one hand off of it.

Seeing Juno’s stonefaced reaction, he changed tacks. “As you can see, I’m in a bit of a, ah, situation here. The Venusian secret police would pay you a pretty penny to get me down in one piece.”

Juno could hardly manage breathing, between the stairs, his asthma, and the breathtaking sight before him. But, unbeknownst to him, his legs were already taking him where he needed to go. His arms rose. Maybe his mind was in denial, but his arms had ached for months now.

As Nureyev fell, his tail, an elaborate confection of ribbon and feathers, caught on the chandelier. It tore half-away, leaving Nureyev with rich blues and greens fluttering in the air behind him, shining in the candlelight. He almost had a halo.

He was almost down.

Juno crumpled to the ground, his chest erupting with a burning sensation he first misidentified as heartbreak. It was more likely a rib. He managed a small grunt before his vision began to fade, before Nureyev’s cologne overwhelmed everything else Juno could sense and wormed its way into his subconscious once more.

“Juno?”


	2. Chapter 2

He woke in a dark and uncomfortable room. This wasn’t a rare circumstance, of course, but this one smelled too familiar for a kidnapping. That, and his ribs hurt just a little too much for it to have been a bad lay.

“Juno? Oh, thank the gods, you’re awake.”

Right.

“Don’t wanna be,” he groaned. “Doesn’t seem likely, with you here. Sure you’re not just weirdly sentient for a daydream?”

He made out a stifled giggle in the swimming white noise of his hearing. “You’ll find I’m a bit more solid than that, detective.”

“Nureyev?” Juno sat up, and immediately regretted it. His body screamed at the effort, and the silence that followed deafened any hearing he was slowly recovering.

There was a sigh in the darkness. “I’m afraid we’ve reunited at rather an inconvenient time, haven’t we?” Nureyev mumbled. “You have made yourself clear, haven’t you? Though of course I’d do anything in my power to... follow your will, I can’t leave you bleeding at the scene of a crime I committed.” There was a pause. “I suppose I’m far too much of a gentleman for my own good.”

The stabbing pain in his chest began to subside once more, replaced by an odd mixture of warmth and unease. “What do you mean, my will?” Juno wished he could see what Nureyev’s face was doing. The blanket of darkness was half-comforting in its forced ignorance. But Juno had always had an unhealthy amount of curiosity. “Where are we?”

“Which of those would you like me to answer first?”

“Where,” Juno decided.

“We’re in the storage basement of the Hyperion Imperial Theater, directly below an active HCPD investigation.” 

“Wonderful. The darkness?”

“Can’t risk being found.”

“Why?”

Juno’s eyes joined his rib in burning as Nureyev lit a match. “This.” In his other hand, he lifted a massive chunk of topaz, cut into the shape of a swan. “The only real jewel in the Imperial’s chandelier.”

“Working on commission, are you?” Juno knew that someone was going to come steal the chandelier back someday. He just hadn’t expected it to be an ex. Never got around to visiting Venus, beautiful as the beaches supposedly were.

“Working, with the commission as a bonus.” In the fading light, Juno made out Nureyev’s lips twitching into a quickly euthanized smile. “I’d never pass up a bonus. Would you?”

“No.” Juno’s mouth moved of its own accord. His eyes were fixed on the disappearing lips, the shadowed cheeks, the dark, dark eyes—

The match went out.

“What about my other question?”

“Ah. Right.”

“...You gonna answer, or should I waste away in this basement with all my words-I-didn’t-say and my couldas and shouldas and wouldas just stewing in my bloodstream forever?”

Nureyev sighed. “No, Juno. You shouldn’t.” He cleared his throat. “What I meant was, I assumed you wouldn’t want to see my face again.”

“Payed for the tickets, didn’t I?” He choked out a chuckle. He wished he could know whether Nureyev was smiling.

“Maybe.” He inhaled sharply. “But, Juno, I tend not to return to lovers who leave me in the night. Especially ones who already know my face, my name, and far too much about me. More than the Brahman government, especially.”

Juno sat for a while like that, his back aching for him to lay his head anywhere, his heart telling him to find Nureyev’s face and… 

“I’m sorry, Juno.”

“You’re  _ what? _ ”

“I’m sorry.” Nureyev struck another match, its glow turning held-back tears into starlight. “I don’t know what I did that made you leave. It could have been the train heist. It should have been the tomb. With all likelihood, even if you hadn’t left that night, it would have been the pressure, the tension, all of the risk you never asked for when you decided I was something pretty to—” Nureyev grimaced. “Something pretty. Something dangerous. To hurt yourself with.”

Juno reached out and laid a hand on Nureyev’s calf, not daring to get closer. “Nureyev… Peter, I can’t deny you hurt me. But you’re not why I left. I’ve hurt myself harder than you ever could, hell, than anyone ever could. I’m the reason. I’m all I have, most of the time, and I couldn’t risk losing myself. Without Hyperion, I’m nothing.”

“Juno, you’re everything.” Peter took him, touch light as a feather, by the hand, and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “With me, you can never be nothing. To me, you’re—” He closed his eyes as the match finally fizzled out completely. “To me you’re an entire planet. Every planet has its cities in need of help, its citizens crying out. Every planet has its fair share of darkness, of doubt.” Juno felt a ginger touch at the small of his back. “That doesn’t mean you’re not the world to me.”

Lips brushed his cheek, but Juno knew he couldn’t stand another moment not touching every inch of Peter Nureyev. With all the restraint he could manage, he brought a hand to Peter’s neck, pulling him into a deep, slow kiss. With all the grace of a ballerina, Peter lifted Juno, hooking one hand around his back and the other his thigh, pressing him close. Juno winced, and for a moment, the spell broke. But Peter caught him by the cheek and kissed him once more with the heat of a thousand kisses missed.

The fluorescent lights struck the kiss cold.

“Korol Stakani! You’re under arrest!”

“Rita, please.” Juno unhooked his arm from the home it had made under Nureyev’s shirt. Yet another time when his limbs disobeyed his every command. “No need to scare him.”

“Oh, but Mista Steel! I remember this one! You left with him and then you didn’t turn up for a  _ million _ weeks and then all of a sudden you come back except you’re  _ covered _ in cologne and this time you’re not even a little wistful or pleased or  _ anything  _ and instead I see you sneaking looks at my streams to see if this fellow is on any!” Triumphant, Rita marched towards the entangled pair. “Now, I caught you on loads of film at the boss’s apartment, Mista Glass or Stakani or  _ whoever,  _ so you better give me the full rundown of why Mista Steel here has a brand new bloodstain on his coat before I skin you head to  _ toe _ !”

“You’ll skin me?”

“You have cameras in my apartment?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alrighty so there's gonna be one more chapter and then an epilogue! see you all then!


	3. Chapter 3

The next time Juno woke up was much more comfortable, to say the least. The gentle rise and fall of Peter’s still-sleeping chest pressed up against his back, the weight of Peter’s arm draped over his waist, their legs a tangled mess in the threadbare sheets… It could have easily reminded him of that late night, or early morning, or whatever it had been. Instead, it felt like a correction. An apology for the sunrises together lost.

Juno’s breath caught in his throat at the thought, and Peter stirred. “Detective?”

“Peter,” he breathed. And Juno remembered, and so Juno closed himself off. Kisses were one thing. Kisses were another thing Nureyev could steal. Mornings belonged to aching bones and lost hope. “I mean, Nureyev, it’s okay. You can go back to sleep.”

Nureyev lifted his arm off of Juno to stretch, sitting up as he did so. “Apologies, Detective, but I really can’t.” He smiled, face still gentle and soft in the morning light bleeding in through the blinds. “Last time I went back to sleep after a night with you,  I woke up to find you gone.” He leaned back down and left a light kiss on Juno’s jaw. “And we can’t have that, can we?

“Sure can’t,” Juno grunted. “Remind me why you’re even here in the first place?”

“I feel that a passionate kiss in the shadowed underground of a decadent theater is a clear enough statement of intent?” 

Juno snorted. “Not on Mars.” He pushed himself up so his still-smarting ribcage was supported by the headboard. “If we’re faking the whole domestic thing, a lady could use a painkiller or seven.”

If Nureyev was regretting any of this yet, his face revealed nothing. “Already done.” He pointed to the nightstand, where Rita (and it had to be Rita, her massive typist’s scrawl was unmistakable) had left a lengthy note and an open bottle of pills, as well as a full glass of orange juice. “Your secretary—who, by the way, insisted that I take the bed while she slept on the couch, despite all forms of common sense—left that there for when you woke up. She told me if you didn’t take one to…” And here Nureyev paused, eyes crinkling with hidden laughter. Juno rolled his eyes. “She told me to take one and, if I recall correctly, ‘put it in his mouth however he finds it favorable.’ I suppose she planned to vacate that couch quickly and leave us to our own devices. Do you make a habit of seduction while grievously injured, Detective?”

“Don’t make me laugh until I take one of those damn painkillers myself,” Juno grumbled. He hoisted himself out of bed. As soon as his feet hit the floor, his head began to swim. “Gee, Nureyev, you really couldn’t have picked a worse landing pad for your daring escape. I swear, I’m not even that soft.”

“Oh, Juno.” Nureyev’s hand was already supporting him at the small of his back, the other holding his shoulder. “Don’t you dare think you’re doing much of anything until that rib of your has at least been bandaged and iced.”

Juno furrowed his eyebrows. “Remind me how you don’t have a scratch on you when I look like this much shit?”

“You caught me, remember?”

Juno remembered. He could picture every instant of the fall. The terror of seeing Peter tumble through the air, unable to help. The relief of feeling him in his arms. The pain.

Sure enough, the pain returned with a vengeance. He popped a pill and, with Nureyev’s help, lurched into the kitchen. “We need to eat.”

“All creatures do,” murmured Nureyev. His eyes were fixed intently on Juno, dancing over every creaking movement of his poor, sore detective.

“Yeah, except that you look actually anemic and I had a pretty small lunch before the ballet yesterday.”

Nureyev’s face creased with worry. Juno tried to let his gaze roll off him, opting to ignore whatever was happening right now instead of facing it on an empty stomach. He avoided Nureyev as he opened the freezer, finding only the sausages Rita had made him buy last week. He avoided Nureyev as he poured oil into a pan and set it heating. He especially avoided Nureyev when he had to bend down, bones creaking, to find a lid for the pan. 

“Do you need a hand, Juno?”   


“About as much as I need an eye.” Juno winced. Why’d all his kitchenware have to be so heavy? “I’ll be fine, though. I’ve had worse things than you break my ribs at Vicky’s place. And I payed money for that.”

“Juno, please, let me get that.” With ease, Nureyev plucked the lid from his hand with one of his own, using the other to dispense a few frozen sausages into the pan. He placed the lid on top and left them to pop and sizzle away. “Do you happen to have any eggs? Bread?”

“Bread’s moldy,” Juno muttered. “As for eggs, you can check outside the door. One of my neighbors thinks I need more protein.”

Dutifully, he ducked out of the kitchen. Juno breathed again. He didn’t want to think about yesterday. He didn’t want to stop thinking about yesterday. He didn’t want to talk to Peter. He never wanted to stop thinking about Peter.

Nureyev reappeared, egg carton in hand. “Juno, why don’t you sit down? Any expert in seduction knows how to make a good morning-after omelette.” He’s slipping. The good-natured giggle attached to that phrase was dripping with guilt. Only Nureyev could make a giggle sound criminal.

Juno sat down at his rickety kitchen table. He had no idea what to make of the genuine emotion bleeding out of Nureyev’s every pore, concealed as it was. He knew Nureyev had said some lovely things, back in the dark of the storage basement. Juno had believed him then, of course. But, with more rest and less pain leaving his judgement a bit clearer, he wasn’t sure what to make of it all now. If he was really “everything” to Peter Nureyev, why was a glittering chandelier needed to bait him back to Hyperion? And if Peter Nureyev was able to lie as Rex Glass and Duke Rose and all those other men in “love” with Juno, he didn’t even question the fact that he couldn’t trust this act, either. Korol Stakani may be just as enamored with his pursuer as Duke Rose with his wife.

“Oh, darling. Are you sure that’s what you want to talk about? Over breakfast?” Damn it. Now Juno was slipping, too. Internal monologues were supposed to stay internal.

“If you don’t want to, we don’t… have to.” Juno sighed. “But it’s kind of killing me. If I’m really so important to you, why’d you stay away? You could have come and swept me off my feet any day.”

“Juno, you seem to be confused.” Nureyev laid a hand on Juno’s where it rest on the knotted wood. “You left me, didn't you? I assumed you  _ never wanted to see me again _ .” The words hit like bullets into concrete. “Sure, you say  _ now _ it’s because of Hyperion, the city herself, because of some  _ twisted _ kind of patriotism, but…” His dark-eyed gaze dropped to the floor. “How do I know that?”

Juno’s face softened into a sad smile at the halting words. “Hey,” he joked, “Who can you trust if not me?”

“Nobody,” he answered. It would have been a snappy piece of banter, back on the Kanagawa case. Instead, with no tension or threat of death to blame when the time came, his tone was bitter and cold, like day-old tea. “That’s why I’m here again. That’s why I’m back on the last planet I ever wanted to see again.”

Juno wasn’t sure whether he ought to be surprised at Peter’s vulnerability or plain old flattered. “If you need to leave, leave, Nureyev.” He reached for the crumpled shape in front of him’s shoulder, fingers brushing the nearly-exposed bone they found there. “Just don’t do it on account of me. You know how it feels (thanks to me, I’ll admit) to be left feeling like you’re not enough, like you did something wrong and you’ll never, ever know what it is. Like you’re—”

“You know, Juno? Fuck this,” Peter rasped, letting his measured tone slip away. “Fuck _me_ for doing all this. I’ve been too obvious. I’ve been—I’ve been horribly unsubtle around you, ever since the day we met. Rex Glass was the hardest cover I’ve ever kept, and Duke Rose barely was one!” Juno didn’t want to think about the implications of that second bit... so he didn’t. “I’ve done everything wrong, I’ve broken every rule I’ve ever set for myself, and you don’t even seem to realize, and somehow that’s  _ worse  _ than being left because if I’m alone I don’t have to think about who I am and how I feel and I can slip into my clothes and go out in the world and charm and con and do as I please, but you never left me, Juno.” He paused to take a breath, shoulders shaking under Juno’s now-steady hand. “Like I said, you’re my world. I can’t leave you as much as I can’t leave space itself. You pursue me like starlight pursues darkness, like the past always, always nips at the heels of the present. And I wish I could make it stop but I know I can’t and it’s one thing to say I’ve  _ fallen  _ in love, but—”

“I know,” Juno breathed. Peter had stood first, and Juno had followed him, and now they were far too close for a flirtatious thief and a hardboiled detective but they were hardly close enough for—

“I love you, and if I could stop loving you, I would. And that’s a terrible thing to say to someone, but I’m a terrible thing to be, and so I may as well be honest.”

“Peter, I…” Juno tipped up his jaw, set like stone, to meet Peter’s eyes. “I’m going to be honest, too. Only half of what you’ve said has made a lick of sense, but what I’ve gathered is we’re  _ both _ terrible things to be.”

Peter chuckled, because of course he did.

“But you make me better. I can’t imagine what it’s like for a con man who grew up in a fucking, I don’t know, surveillance state to feel followed all the time. Hell, I don’t blame you if you kill me right here and now just for closure’s sake. But you? For me?” Juno wheezed an achy laugh. “I know you’re afraid of hurting me, but you’re the only thing that I’ve ever been able to walk away from. And I know that’s also a terrible thing to say. But it’s what I need. I don’t need another addiction. I need— _ mmph _ —”

Peter kissed him, because of course he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so how bout that finale, yall?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very brief epilogue.

_ Thump.  _ “Mister Steel?”  _ Thump, thump.  _ “...Mister Stakani?”

“Go away, Rita!” Juno threw a pillow at the door from his less-than-ideal position on the couch. Morning light filtering through dirty windows illuminated his limbs and Peter’s, entangled again. 

There was giggling at the door, but it got quiet enough after a while that Juno had to assume she was gone. “Get up, sleepyhead,” Juno muttered into the crook of Peter’s neck. “Time to make a not-fake-happy-family-breakfast.”

Peter popped one eye open. “Strange that you still assume I sleep through someone thumping at my door and yelling my codename.”

“Yeah, well.” Juno would have winked, if he had the eyes for it. “Figured you were tired.”

A feigned yawn made Peter’s jaw jab sharply into a bruise on Juno’s head. “Ow!”

“So sorry, dear. We’d better change your dressings too, mm?”

Juno rolled his eye, stretching out the arm still wrapped around Peter’s ribs. “If you say so, Doc. Not like I can do shit about it in this state.”

“You’re plenty capable, Juno. If you wanted to, hmm, apprehend me, I’m sure you could. I’ve seen your work with handcuffs. Quite impressive.”

“Save it for tonight, Peter.” Juno’s chuckle no longer sent half as many jabs of pain through his torso compared to yesterday. He’d consider that another small victory.

There were a lot, today. Waking up: small victory. Waking up with Peter: less small victory. Waking up with Peter, still safe in his arms, with his secretary out there to prove it’s not an actually-remembering-and-getting-closure-on-his-past-for-once-induced dream? He’d never win anything this big again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is bite sized but i needed yall to know that rita came to check on them because god knows she would! i may do more in this continuity if only because i love ballerina peter, but this is the short tasty conclusion of this one


End file.
